Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 27, 2006

Oroonoko title page

Oroonoko is a short novel by Aphra Behn published in 1688, concerning the tragic love of its hero, an enslaved African in Suriname in the 1660s, and the author's own experiences with the new American colony. It is generally claimed (most famously by Virginia Woolf) that Aphra Behn was the first professional female author in English. While this is not entirely true, it is true that Behn was the first professional female dramatist and novelist, as well as one of the first novelists in English. Although she had written at least one novel previously, Oroonoko is both one of the earliest English novels and one of the earliest by a woman. Behn worked for Charles II as a spy during the outset of the Second Dutch War, working to solicit a double agent. However, Charles either failed to pay her for her services or failed to pay her all that he owed her, and Behn, upon returning to England, needed money. She was widowed and destitute and even spent some time in debtor's prison before scoring a number of successes as an author. In the 1670s, only John Dryden had plays staged more often than Behn. She turned her hand to long prose toward the end of her dramatic career, and Oroonoko was published in the same year as her death at the age of 48. (More...)

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